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Those expecting the Human Toltoy to drift quietly off into the sunset after it finally became apparent that he had become unelectable, were exposed for the na�ve dreamers they are. It has now emerged how during the election campaign, Reith became the chief propagandist of the Howard Government's win at all costs strategy, able to perpetrate the most unconscionable acts of public manipulation in the secure knowledge he would be out of public life by the time his sins came to light.
So what has emerged this week? The Defence Minister explicitly ignored advice from the Defence department that there was no video of children being thrown overboard. Reith's reply? "Well, we'd better not see the video then." This was one of a series of bureaucratic briefings to Reith and his staff that were ignored as the anti-asylum seeker campaign spiraled out of control. Reith is now taking up the mantle of Fall Guy - but it is a role without honour or, indeed, credibility.
This goes beyond the day-to-day omissions and sins that characterize politics. This was calculated to mislead the Australian people and lure them down a path of fear and loathing from which they are yet to emerge. What it means is that the attitudes towards the asylum seekers were fueled by lies. These were the attitudes that were played like a song to deliver Howard a third term. Whether or not, Reith passed this information on to Howard is irrelevant. His government has no legitimacy.
The story broke only days after it emerged that Reith's defence department had spied on calls made to the Tampa during the dispute. While the government denies the tapping had anything to do with the MUA or its international organization the ITF, Reith's form indicates that a full and open inquiry is the only adequate response.
So much for a peaceful retirement. And Reith still faces legal action over his personal part in the conspiracy to sack the Patrick's workforce and replace them with non-union labour; the ham-fisted coup that galvanized people behind the MUA and the union movement in general. Here too, the years of bombastic denials have failed to convince any observer that Reith wasn't up to his neck in the plot.
Putting to the side the corruption and deceit involved in the Tampa lies and cover up, there are other broader and more far reaching disasters being inflicted on us by Reith, Howard, Ruddock, Downer et al. They have completely degraded our political process. They have humiliated us internationally. Their misuse of the armed forces and intelligence services for partisan political ends takes us into totalitarian territory. Instead of leading a debate about the enormous challenges we face and the opportunities we must grab they have reduced political discourse to one dominated by divisive, malevolent and artificial moral panics. The truth is the last election was a complete waste of time. At that point you know your democratic structures are in shreds.
As to the future, Reith has apparently landed a consultancy with Tenix, one of the big players in the military-industrial complex, where he will no doubt use his personal contacts to open doors in Canberra to argue for more military spending to deal with the very 'crisis' he has been so instrumental in fabricating. There's probably some irony there, but right now I'm too angry to see it.
This is a man whose political epitaph will be the erosion of trust in public life. From the goons in balaclavas taking over the docks, to Madame X and the Telecard affair to the final ignominy of the fictitious dumping of children at sea, Reith has put the contest above the context to the detriment of us all. For these and many more reasons, he is a Tool for Life.
The research, presented to a NSW Labor Council workplace harmony seminar this week, shows the majority of Australians, from all works of life, back current hard-line refugee policies.
The survey of 708 voters, commissioned by the Labor Council, found:
- 63 percent believe Howard had handled the asylum seeker issue well or very well. While non-unionists were more supportive of Howard (67 per cent) a majority (58 per cent) of union members also supported the stand.
- Higher income earners (above $70,000) were less likely to support the Prime Minister (54 per cent) compared with 71 percent of voters earning under $50,000.
But there was some room for optimism that people were open to a more compassionate stance.
- While there was strong agreement for emotive propositions such as: "If people want to come to Australia because they are fearful of being persecuted in their own country, they should go through the proper channels of face mandatory detention" (80 percent)
- and "any softening of Australia's current policy would lead to a massive influx of illegal immigrants and would be unfair to those who are waiting their rightful turn in the queue" (77 percent),
- a majority of respondents accepted the proposition that "seeking asylum in Australia or a country other than one's own is not illegal, nor is it queue jumping. It is a fundamental right of any person experiencing persecution in their country of origin.(58 percent of union members agreed).
Challenge Not to be Shirked
Accepting the statistics showed there was a lot of work to do in winning over union members, Labor Council secretary John Robertson says it's a challenge the labour movement cannot afford to shirk.
Robertson, who's taken a leading role in the Labor for Refugees group, says the only way to fight the issue is to foster understanding and compassion for the plight of refugees at a workplace level.
"The reality is that support for the Prime Minister on this issue is so high because there has not been a strong counter-argument presented," Robertson says.
"Unfolding events show the extent to which Howard used propaganda to shape the debate for his own political advantage. Our challenge is to present a different story to our membership."
Plan for Action
Participants at the seminar came up with proposals to take the issue onto work sites, including:
- workplace visits by refugees
- producing an information kit for delegates and activists
- developing a Labor Council statement of commitment to diversity
- winning senior union officials to the campaign
The proposals will be formally considered by the Labor Council executive next week.
Premier Bob Carr received a cool reception when he addressed the NSW Labor Council's Annual General Meeting this week � his first visit to Trades hall since the picket on State Parliament over cuts to workers compensation entitlements last June.
While there was no mention of the W-word in the speech, delegates made their feelings felt from the floor.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said that while the links between unions and the ALP were strong, "the relationship had been tested" in the previous 12 months.
"Expectations are now higher that the government will act on issues of concern to the union movement - not because we are ask for it, but because it is the right thing to do," he said.
Robertson nominated government contracting policies, the regulation of labour hire and standards for the call center industry as issues for specific concern.
But he said the threat of a conservative government's attack on workers rights could not be under-estimated.
Fortress NSW
Carr's address focused on the government's achievements in industrial relations, its plan to $70 million in capital works this financial year and a series of undertakings for future reform linked to the review of the 1996 Industrial Relations Act.
Key initiatives over the coming 12 months would include:
- new, clear legislation on annual leave and Long Service Leave entitlements.
- implementation of recommendations for the inquiry into labour hire
- and in principle support for the ACTU call center charter - although this would be adapted "to meet requirements specific to NSW".
The Premier contrasted his government's achievements to the on-going attacks on workers rights by the Howard Government and said that "Fortress NSW" was now a reality.
And he said that since the federal election he had been a consistent advocate for the trade union movement within the Party. "If Labor had been defeated without organic links to the union movement, we'd now be looking at ways of inventing and organic link between Labor and the trade unions."
Stalwarts Honoured
Meanwhile, the Labor Council has paid tribute eight unionists for their contribution to the movement, presenting them with scrolls of honour at the AGM:
They are:
� John Hennessy retiring general secretary of the NSW Teachers Federation
� Alastair Macdonald, from the ASU Clerkes branch recently appopinted a commissioner to the NSW IRCAustralian Services Union (NSW C & A Branch)
� Joseph Lyons, from the MEU
� Dougal Watt, secretary of the The Real Estate Association of NSW
� Joon Shik Shin, a Korean activist with the CFMEU, Construction & General Division
� Herman English, a long-time CFMEU delegate to the Labor Council.
� Madge Neilson from the NSW Nurses' Association
� and John Taylor also from the NSW Nurses
Speaking on behalf of the eight, John Hennessy said the Council had changed dramatically since the days when the factions used to sit facing each other and spoiling for a blue.
"The most positive development in my mind has been that when any affiliate raises an issue at this Council they get the support of the entire movement in this State."
Hennessy said highlights of his time at the Council included the campaign against the Metherell education reforms, when all unionists backed the Teachers Federation.
And he said he would remember with pride the day unions took a stand for workers compensation outside State Parliament.
The CPSU considered testing the strength of Abbott�s born-again credentials after the Liberal Party head-kicker handed unexpected bouquets to public servants in a widely-circulated Canberra Times interview.
In a Damscus-like revelation Abbott told how six years experience had transformed his views.
"I was probably as susceptible to that kind of facile bureaucrat bashing as the next person," Abbott confessed. "But my experience of the Department of employment ... has given me a great respect and appreciation for the qualities of the Australian Public Service. I have become a complete convert to the strengths of our public service and have learnt to very much appreciate what it can do."
It was, however, Abbott's reference to the "simply phenomenal" hours worked by public servants that caught the eye of CPSU national secretary, Wendy Caird.
In her appearance before the Industrial Relations Commission, Caird argued that the loss of around 30,000 public service jobs over the last five years had led to an increase in dangerously long working hours.
"Because public servants are dedicated and professional the job gets done. But let's not forget this dedication often comes at a heavy price in terms of health and family life," Caird said.
The ACTU claim seeks to insert in the award system a standard of fairness about working hours and unhealthy roster patterns.
The peak union body says Australians work among the longest hours in the developed world and this has implications for safety, family life and and productivity.
The application is supported by the governments of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory but is being opposed by employer groups.
Informed Canberra sources said Abbott would be "a voice crying out in the wilderness" if he attempted to have the Federal Government added to that list.
The move comes as more and more evidence emerges that the government espionage was outside the national guidelines, a serious breach of privacy and an intrusion on legitimate union business.
"The government has not been able to justify these outrageous acts," National Secretary Paddy Crumlin says. "Senator Hill's statement raises more questions than it answers. He claims we were not targetted but this does not rule out we were spied on nevertheless."
Crumlin has also dismissed statements made by the Minister for Workplace Relations Tony Abbott questioning the unions' right to contact the ship.
"All MUA/ITF correspondence with the Tampa was in support and concern for the crew," said Crumlin. "We believed the ship's master was only upholding maritime tradition and international law in rescuing people at sea and we told him so."
All crew members on board the Tampa were affiliated to the ITF. Crumlin is an ITF executive board member and the MUA is an affiliate union.
Meanwhile the union is renewing it's call for a inquiry.
"We need to clear up whether this latest controversy is part of the ongoing government conspiracy against the MUA," said Crumlin.
"The High Court established we had a a case back in 1998. And since their unsuccessful attempt to remove the Maritime Union members from the waterfront the government has targetted our seafaring members, replacing more than 20 per cent of the Australian domestic fleet and crew with foreign shipping registered in tax havens employing third world labour.
"We have a right to know whether or not these latest allegations are linked to an overall government conspiracy against this union."
The NSW Labor Council's Australian music website Wobbly Radio is offering $5,000 to the performer who can produce a 'Solidarity Forever' for the 21st Century.
The prize is open to all genres from folk to rock to hip hop - only criteria is the song has to have something to do with workers, unions and/or collectivity
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says the contest is all part of the Labor Council's commitment to Australian music - and it's desire to improve the quality of the rally war-cry.
"Even our biggest fans have grown tired of the old chants like 'the workers untied., will never be defeated'", Robertson says.
"What we need is a new sound to capture the hearts of a new generation of workers."
The May Day Committee has backed the contest and will host the finals play-off at their annual May Day Toast, to be held on Wednesday May 1 at the Metro.
For more details go to Wobbly radio - http://www.wobblyradio.com.au
Unions Rock at Big Day Out
Once again the Union movement made it presence know at the annual music festival the Big Day Out. This year was the 10th Big Day Out and the biggest year yet for the Unions NSW stall.
The stall, which was staffed by officials from the Labor Council, CFMEU, LHMU, Musicians Union, CPSU and the TWU, recruited over 115 young people to unions. This was a marked improvement on last year at which over 60 people signed up.
Apart from informing people about the rights at work and the benefits of being active in their workplaces people were also invited to write a message to John Howard and their Boss on a Giant Postcard. The Postcard, which measured 10x3 meters, was filled up by mid-afternoon. The majority of the messages on the postcard condemned Howard's inhumane treatment of Refugees and also about the injustice of junior rates of pay.
Wobbly Radio also made a splash at the festival launching its Worker Song Competition and handing out several thousand "Wobbly Radio" temporary tattoos.
The International Confederation of Free Trades Union (ICFTU) says Marker is one of four IOC partners on their list of countries trading with Burma, in breach of ILO sanctions.
Salt Lake 2002 |
Burma, a country where forced labour is widespread, has been condemned by the ILO and the international community in general for its flagrant disrespect of labour standards and human rights.
The ICFTU has published a list of companies with links to Burma, which is available online (http://www.global-unions.org/burma/). This list is intended to encourage such companies to abandon their links with Burma.
In addition to Marker Ltd., three other companies from the ICFTU Burma list - Lucent Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Samsung - are official sponsors/partners of the 2002 Olympic Games.
Contribute to Peace
In a letter sent to Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Confederation of Free Trade Unions General Secretary Guy Ryder stated that, "no responsible organisation or body should make use of products originating in Burma. This is particularly true for an organisation that has a goal to 'contribute to building a peaceful and better world.'"
Ryder says, "the Olympic Games are viewed worldwide by a huge global audience. The Olympic flame is a sign of hope, not repression."
"The International Olympic Committee should immediately act to disassociate itself from those trading with tyranny in Burma and reaffirm the historic values of the Olympic Games." "
To read the letter sent to Jacques Rogge- President of the I.O.C.- please visit:
The CPSU was meeting TeleOne principals, including one-time One.Tel chiefs Mark Silbermann and Kevin Beck, today. Stephen Jones, Communications Section assistant secretary, told Workers Online they would be looking for key assurances before recommending that former employees walk through the doors.
The union wants specific information on ...
� the length of TeleOne's contracts with carriers
� its corporate structure - what are its assets, who holds those assets and who will be the employing entity?
� commitments on negotiating an award and certified agreement
"We have maintained contact with a number of former One.Tel people and won't be advising them to take the risk unless we get those assurances," Jones said.
The former directors announced plans to launch their new phone company, focusing on the residential market, in April.
More than 1600 workers were left jobless when One.Tel collapsed last year with $600 million in debts. Quick action from the CPSU recovered redundancy payments and other entitlement but significant bonuses still went unpaid.
One.Tel employed staff on individual contracts in direct opposition to the collective documents being pursued by the CPSU.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is reportedly trying to have Silbermann and One.Tel boss Jodee Rich, unconnected with the new venture, barred from being managers or directors of any Australian company.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow says a coalition of union, community, legal and youth organisation will campaign against the changes proposed by Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott.
"His plan to exempt small business from unfair dismissal laws would remove job security from millions of workers who could be sacked for not reason. Why should employees in large businesses have legal right, but million of others miss out?" she said.
Burrow said existing laws were not a major burden on small business, with less than 0.3 percent being involved with federal unfair dismissal cases in any year.
Meanwhile, small business in Abbott's Warringah electorate is fingering GST as a greater cause of concern.
Fifty two respondents in a survey of 100 businesses, employing fewer than 20 people, opted for GST as the Government policy causing most concern, while not one gave "unfair dismissal" as a reason for not hiring more workers.
NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson says proposals to weaken regulatory controls and reporting requirements couldn't have come at a worse worker shareholding proponents.
Both Employment Minister, Tony Abbott, and Labor Party front bencher, Mark Latham, are outspoken advocates of tying workers interests to those of their employers through stock holdings.
Robertson said the Enron collapse, attributed to inaccurate reporting and conflicts of interest involving accountants Arthur Andersen, had pushed the possibility of workers embracing such schemes "right down the agenda".
When Enron filed for bankruptcy, last December, it cost 4100 American workers their jobs, entitlements and the vast bulk of their superannuation investments. The failure of the US's seventh-largest corporation devastated suppliers and sent shockwaves around financial markets.
Stronger Controls
"There is no future for employee share ownership unless we strengthen controls and deficit reporting requirements," Robertson said. "Unfortunately, politicians at federal and state levels are talking, instead, about loosening standards."
Robertson called reports that NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr had added his voice to the light-regulation push "disturbing".
The Electrical Trades Union has backed the call, warning that US-style deregulation will make collapses like HIH, Ansett or One.Tel more likely.
The Labor Council will contact both state and federal Governments to express concerns about proposals to loosen regulatory regimes.
Rail unions say the newly privatised enterprise was sold to Chris Corrigan's Patricks for 25 per cent of its true value.
Rail, Tram and Bus Unions NSW branch secretary Nick Lewocki says the joint sale of FreightCorp and National Rail confirmed pre-sale analysis that the Federal Government would sell National Rail for significantly less than the real value of the assets.
The RTBU said National Rail, valued at approximately $800 million, was flicked off for $220 million.
No protests have been heard from share holding State Governments, NSW and Victoria, or the federal opposition transport spokesperson.
"No wonder the public is cynical about privatisation," Lewocki said.
"Investors have identified that the Federal Government sold National Rail for significantly less than its real value.
Reinvest Money In State Services
Meanwhile, the RTBU has called on the Carr Government to invest money from FreightCorp and its National Rail share back into community infrastructure.
The recent sale of FreightCorp by the NSW Government plus its 20 per cent share from the National Rail sale has nettled the NSW Government $365 million.
The RTBU has written to Premier Bob Carr identifying three important investments that will return some value to rural communities. These are:
- upgrading and refurbishing the rural passenger service fleet - XPT carriages and engines.
- upgrading NSW rail infrastructure, focussing on country branch lines, and urgently upgrading old rail bridges
- injecting funds into rural education, aged care and health services
The AMWU Printing Division turned the spotlight on Kinko's after it stopped some workers attending workplace union meetings and threatened
disciplinary action against those who did.
As part of the crackdown, Kinko's distributed a policy on 'The Solicitation and Distribution of Non-Company materials' handed down by its US parent company.
The policy forbids workers:
- speaking to their delegate during work time
- reading or distributing union material at work
- speaking to fellow workers about the union or anything not authorised by the company
- attending union meetings in the workplace
- putting up notices that haven't been vetted by the company
- having unauthorised printed matter on the premises.
The policy would stop workers collecting or seeking support for bushfire victims, cancer research or school and community bodies.
The policy also places restrictions on radio stations allowed on site, restricting listeners to "customer-appropriate stations" defined as CNN, easy listening and all-news broadcasters.
Breach of the policy is grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal.
"This policy is over the top," the AMWU's Mark West says. "What we want the company to do is to sit down and negotiate a sensible policy with workers."
The LHMU Airport Security Union has written to the Ministers for Transport and Customs, as well as Labor and Democrat Transport spokespersons, to arrange suitable times to meet and discuss aviation security concerns.
" Our members will give first hand accounts of the problems," said Jeff Lawrence, LHMU national secretary.
The Union wants the Government to audit standards as part of a general upgrading of aviation security.
"Despite giving lip service to security improvements little has happened since September 11," Jeff Lawrence, LHMU Airport Security Union National Secretary will tell a rally at Canberra airport on Sunday.
" The Federal Government needs to step in and review the effectiveness of security and screening standards because each time we point out a deficiency the stock response is that screening and security standards are based on, and meet, all government requirements."
Instead the Union puts the problem down to more avoidable human causes.
Ian McCarthy, the CEPU's NSW Telecommunications Branch Secretary, says that his Union had been warning for some years that Telstra�s savage staff cuts would eventually hit consumers.
"Telstra's programme of staff reductions, budget cuts and outsourcing is proving disastrous for people who rely on their telephones," McCarthy says.
"Now management appear to have the very tragic death of 10 year old Sam Boulding on their conscience. Sam�s parents have every right to blame Telstra's senior managers and to seek an explanation so that the lives of other people are protected during an emergency. Without a phone people in the country are reduced to 18th century communications.
"This problem is particularly acute in rural areas where many technical staff have been forced to cover extremely short staffing by massively increased overtime. It's therefore thoroughly duplicitous of Telstra to offer the weak excuse, which I've seen in media reports, that the company couldn't afford the overtime required to fix the Boulding's phone. In 2002, because of staff shortages, this business is thriving on excessive overtime to the cost of many of our members' health and lifestyle.
"Yet quite incredibly, Telstra plans to get rid of another 10,000 workers this year.
"Many Telstra employees worked their guts out during the recent bushfires even thought their own homes were threatened at times and they were unable to be with their families at a time of crisis.
"To add insult to injury Telstra recently announced that they were to trial new maintenance arrangements using private contractors. This move would have placed thousands more Telstra jobs at risk.
"This is not the way to say thanks for the magnificent effort these technicians put in during the recent bushfire crisis. "
The Union has warned Telstra management that unless steps were taken urgently fault delays would blow out even further and simply moving the dwindling number of technical staff around the country would be no long term fix.
"We understand that hundreds of technicians have been moved into NSW from Victoria, Queensland and South Australia in an attempt to reduce service delays. This in turn has left those states short staffed and vulnerable to service delays and there is evidence emerging that this is already happening," McCarthy says.
ACTU president Sharran Burrow said unions had made it clear they would not embrace globalisation while governments continued to duck responsibilities for human rights and labour standards.
"By once again marginalising labour and civil society and opting for free trade without rules to protect people, the WTO has chosen not to construct a fair trading system," Burrow said.
"Why is it that governments continue to deny their responsibility for the peoples who elected them?"
Burrow said unions were insisting that the building of a 21st century economic system go hand-in-hand with establishing globally accepted rules to protect people.
The growing debate was brought into sharp focus by the contributions of WTO director general, Mike Moore, and Australian Prime Minister, John Howard.
Observers were surprised by the stark choice laid before delegates in the director's forum summary. Moore told WTO members they "must" engage with unions and civil society and branded opposition to closer relationships with social agencies such as the International Labour Organisation and World Health Organisation "infantile".
The former New Zealand Trade Minister told delegates that union and social organisations should participate in WTO forums with a view to developing a shared understanding.
Howard, on the other hand, ignored the plight of the poor, the unemployed and the displaced in his contribution. His central analysis was that globalisation had an image problem because political leaders had failed to sell the benefits.
An embarrassed Burrow said international union representatives at the forum had been "shocked" by the narrow analysis of the Australian Prime Minister.
Union members in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne plan protests to back Shangri-La Jakarta hotel workers who have been involved in a 14-month dispute, after being locked out on Boxing Day. 2000.
The Jakarta dispute has been very ugly with incidents of violence.
Shangri-La, which now boasts 38 hotels across Asia, is owned by one of world's richest men, Malaysian-born billionaire Robert Kuok, regarded as one of Beijing's favourite capitalists.
The LHMU Hotel Union has organised a protest for midday, next Thursday, February 21, in front of the Shangri-La hotel's Sydney marketing office at 213 Clarence Street Sydney.
Union members will hand a protest letter to the Indonesian Consulate calling on that Government to ensure the hotel chain recognises the local union and re-instates sacked workers.
In November, 2001, the ILO Freedom of Association Committee ruled that the Indonesian Government had not met its international treaty obligations and called for Shangri-La workers to be re-instated.
International pressure caused US Congressional representatives to cancel Shangri-La Jakarta Hotel bookings.
The Melbourne Age last week tipped the Kuok Group to win Docklands Authority go-ahead to build office buildings with Collins St frontage, a Shangri-La Hotel, four residential towers, and refurbishment of the southern part of the Heritage Victoria-listed Goods Shed No.2 as a fresh-food market.
For more information about the Sydney protest rally call Jagath Bandara on 8204 7204 at the LHMU Hotel Union office, mobile 0425 214 618.
For information about rallies in other Australian cities call Jasper Goss or Sarah Gardener from the hotels union international, IUF, on 02 9264 6409.
Visit the Shangri-La Jakarta Solidarity page at LabourStart
To get more background about this on-going dispute in Indonesia clicking here.
Meeting this Sunday at 2.00 pm LHMU Auditoirum 187 Thomas Street Sydney
Phone Paul Howes 0425 231 820 for more info or check out www.labor4refugees.org/nsw
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THE 2001 ELECTION ANALYSIS: THE WAY FORWARD FOR THE ALP
WITH GEOFF WALSH ALP NATIONAL SECRETARY
AND
ANTHONY GREEN ABC ELECTION ANALYST
AND
DAVID BRADBURY (ALP CANDIDATE FOR LINDSAY) AND JENNY MCALLISTER ALP CANDIDATE FOR RICHMOND)
Wednesday 27 February 2002
6.15 pm for 6.30 pm start
Berkelouwe Bookshop (upstairs caf�)
Norton St, Leichhardt
RSVP to [email protected] or for further information, contact Ben Heraghty on 0412 022 909.
To join the Australian Fabian Society, email Paul Smith at: [email protected] or Race Matthews at: [email protected]
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An essential half day program for legal practitioners, hr and ir managers, union officials, consultants and advisors, policy makers.
presented by: acirrt, University of Sydney
Continuing Education Program, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney. This program is MCLE accredited.
Thursday 21 March 2002, 8:45am - 1:15pm
The Rex Hotel, 50 - 58 Macleay Street, Potts Point, Sydney
Cost: $495 (including GST)
Tickets can be optained from the national press club [email protected] orph (02) 6273 3644
*********************
An off beat memoir by Grahame Harrison
To celebrate the release of this new book by Grahame Harrison, Pluto is holding a special seminar featuring Sylvia Lawson discussing the Sydney Push and dissent in the 1950s, and Judith Keene on Spain under General Franco.
The seminar will conclude with the launching of Night Train to Granada by Roelof Smilde
Details:
When: Tuesday 19th February, 6pm for 6.30pm
Where: Walkabout Gallery, Top Floor, Berkelouw Bookstore
70 Norton Street, Leichhardt 2040
Admission Free and a gold coin donation kindly accepted
RSVP and media inquiries : [email protected]
I must have an awfully bad memory of NSW politics 'cause I thought the last time the NSW branch of the ALP had a proper debate on the floor of its conference it voted overwhelmingly not to deregulate the electricity industry in NSW.
Well I must be mistaken as I just got a letter in the mail telling me that the NSW Electricity Industry is now deregulated. So much for the Trade Union movement having too much influence within the ALP.
Having read this letter I thought I would have a look at what rationale the ALP has for deregulation, and I found that the rhetoric of cheaper prices for consumers has now disappeared.
All of a sudden we are being told that we will have "choice" and haven't the screams for choice just been deafening. We don't even hear the 'New Labour' line that private capital will build us new power stations. Thousands of workers in the electricity industry will now loose their jobs when they are told that they must become more competitive.
Thousands of families will have their incomes slashed just like the La Trobe Valley in Victoria, an area that saw the demand for food parcels increase twenty fold after Kennet deregulated the Victorian electricity industry. Victoria is now facing a winter of electricity restrictions and blackouts thanks to the free market in electricity.
So in whose interests has the electricity industry been deregulated?
Electricity deregulation has led to a 300-400% increase in electricity prices for consumers in California. Hundreds of Californian families have been bounced by power companies for failing to pay their bills and are now on black lists that deny them connection to the power grid.
I cast my vote at the last state election against Kerry Chikarovski and her hair brained scheme to give everyone a thousand bucks so she could sell off the power industry.
This was the primary issue that Bob Carr ran on in the last state election.
Where is the democracy in the NSW Parliament, and when are our political and trade union leaders going to grow some back bone and say enough is enough. At least 51% of the voters in NSW dont want deregulation.
Simon Flynn
United Firefighters Union
Eric Lee, of the UK-based website/portal LabourStart, has provided us, on the Australia-based LaborNet (http://workers.labor.net.au/123/b_tradeunion_eric.html), with his take on International Labour 2001 (appended). Eric's account centres on the September 11 terrorist attack on the USA which, he reasonably declares, has changed labour's world for ever, but has also 'paralysed' the 'anti-globalisation movement'. He concludes, therefore, that unions will 'be needed as never before to protect the interests of working people and to preserve the possibility of a better world'.
I am not at ease with this - admittedly telegraphic or photographic - account. I would consider it to both underestimate the depth and significance of the crisis for labour internationally, and to overestimate the crisis for what I prefer to call the global justice movement (GJM).
The inter/national trade-union organizations (ITUOs) - the significant remaining part of what was once an international labour movement - are increasingly to be found in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and its 'family' (for which see Global Unions http://www.global-unions.org/). The family now has at least 157 million members, including unions in all major world reserves of the working class with the exception of China. But its unity is that of a downsized, defensive and socio-politically marginalised labour movement. These unions are having the greatest difficulty coming to terms with globalisation - 'the cancer stage of capitalism'. They are repeatedly trying - and repeatedly failing - to get globalisation to behave according to the rules, procedures, institutions and understandings of a 20th century national-industrial-colonial (NIC) capitalism.
The GJM was born in and against this globalised-networked-financial/services capitalism (GNC). It promises to fill the role, within both national and global society, played by labour at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. At that time labour was the social movement - meaning that which gave form, voice and leadership to the most general social discontents and demands (it included, at least for a time and in part, the women's, nationalist, suffrage, culture, communication, nature, education, peace and cooperative production/consumption movements). The GJM could benefit dramatically from the full commitment of the institutionalized international union movement (IIUM), but the latter has a profoundly ambiguous attitude toward the former.
During 2001, there was repeated evidence of the entrapment of the institutionalized international unions within the old NIC capitalism. One could mention their cautious and diplomatic behaviour during an innovatory roundtable with GJM NGOs and social movements, on international labour issues, in Bangkok, March. Or their virtual invisibility (invisibility also in virtual reality) outside the lobbies at the Genoa Summit of the G8 in July.
Or, most significantly, their almost unconditional identification with 'western civilisation' not only in immediate shocked reaction to September 11, but also in respect of the US-dominated 'war against terrorism' - which counter-terrorized a whole nation, and is apparently putting previously-defeated macho tribalists, oligarchs and militarists back into power (under the tutelage, now, of the USA+Family, the MNCs and the IMF). There are here strong echoes of Western labour's role during NIC phase of capitalism. This is not only the self-identification of labour with the 'free world' during the Cold War, but its self-subordination to nationalistic militarism and colonial imperialism almost 100 years ago!
The ICFTU Family largely re-affirmed, after September 11, that it was going, on November 9, to organize an international day of action against (or at least around) the WTO 4th Ministerial, in Dohar, Quatar. This was a uniquely assertive proposal. It was to be internationally coordinated but nationally or even locally determined. It was to take place within the workplaces - a space so far untouched by the GJM. It was to take place in coordination with major elements of the GJM. What actually occurred amongst the 157 million members of the ICFTU was a decidedly low-key affair - virtually unnoticed outside the trade union websites. As for Doha itself, the IIUOs apparently played their traditional role of energetic lobbying - combined with some globally invisible demonstration along with the GJM - but ending with the ritual complaint that the WTO is ignoring organized labour. (Actually the WTO is not ignoring labour: it has been systematically taking it to the cleaners worldwide!
, whilst wisely tolerating the ineffective complaints of its representatives in the lobbies).
Closer to the year's end we did see energetic and extensive trade union and GJM demonstrations at the time of the European Summit, at Laeken, Belgium, December.
Eric Lee's suggestion 1) that the GJM was paralysed by September 11 and ineffective on November 9 (at Doha), and 2) that the unions must continue energetically as before, is lacking as analysis and counter-productive as strategy.
The GJM took S11 on its chest but in its stride (it already assumed the inter-dependency of capitalist job-destruction, exploitation of labour, militarism, and projects for world domination). It was no more ineffective in Doha than the IIUOs but, unlike labour, it was prevented from its customary street protests by the conference site (the kind of place where Western Civilisation really appreciates Muslim Autocracy), as well as by quite specific WTO measures to restrict NGO access. Walden Bello, the veteran Filipino intellectual and activist, a prominent figure within the GJM, recognizes the challenge that S11 implies for the movement but concludes rather differently than Eric:
(T)here is a clear silver lining in the post-September 11 situation, it is that three movements that had formerly gone their independent ways - the peace movement, the human rights movement, and the anti-corporate globalization movement - now find it critical to collaborate more closely with one another. This is a potent alliance that can make a significant contribution to changing the correlation of forces in medium and long term, as the exclusionary, marginalizing, and repressive thrusts of the global system inexorably assert themselves.
Where are the IIUOs in relationship to such an interpretation? 2001 suggests that one can look at the unions in two ways simultaneously: 1) as being outside the GJM, and 2) as being on one of its peripheries. It is outside in terms of its age, its narrowness, its institutional rigidities, its central concern with 'social partnership' with multi/national corporations and inter/state organizations. It is within in so far as the GJM is a broad and loose alliance, including reformist single-issue/single-identity movements at one margin, and ultra-radical socialists or anarchists at the other.
There is, however, plenty of room, and plenty of openness, in the GJM for the unions - as witnessed whenever they show up in the public arena - however they show up in this arena (peaceful demonstration on the streets, mass media presence, public dialogue, cyberspace activity). Moreover, the GJM needs and could greatly benefit from the energetic commitment of the IIUOs.
The self-mobilisation of 157 million unionized workers, alongside the students, women, indigenous peoples, enviromentalists, anti-militarists, the democratic movements of the West, the old East and the old South - might have the civilizing impact on 'the civilized world' that the GJM has so far been unable to achieve. And whilst the IIUOs are something of an alligator (trying to digest whatever they swallow), the GJM is more like an amoeba, or cyberspace - in a condition of continual self-transformation and re-invention. The IIUOs could therefore be positively/energetically engaged with the GJM without losing any such autonomy as they might wish to retain.
What the unions have learned, or failed to learn - or even reversed away from - in 2001 will be demonstrated by their presence or absence at the World Social Forum II, Porto Alegre, Brazil, early-February, 2002.
If Seattle, November 1999, was the site of one 'no', the WSF in Porto Alegre, is the place of many 'yeses'. This is the new, if only temporary, capital of the Global Justice Movement. It is in the South - the 'majority world'. It is a city ruled by a labour party, with a tradition of participatory and consciousness-raising urban government. The Brazilian CUT union centre will be there. So will the ORIT (the regional organization for the whole American hemisphere - i.e. including the USA and Canada!).
What the unions have learned or failed to learn from 2001 will be also demonstrated by the manner of their participation. Will they stick to 'core business' (defence of the collective self-interest of the decreasingly unionized minority of the world's working classes, to appeals for capital and state to go back to the 'social partnership' of a past that is fading into history)? Or will they recognize that capitalist globalisation implies poverty, ecological destruction, cultural uniformity, denial of the rights of women, racism. And that the war against Afghanistan is only 'the first war of the 21st century'?
Peter Waterman
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/
As the federal election fades into the past urban myths are beginning to form , the left [or is it now the greens?] are claiming a moral victory not theirs to claim.
In the airy fair world of the left they claim victory in the ALP defeat, claim this moral minority had lead a backlash against a xenophobic government and the ALP.
John Howard would welcome suck defeats often!.
The truth is the country rejected forever GST relief[ its never again on the agenda] real health and education reform ,and a true moral responsibility for aged care.
It was always going to be a lost election from the day Tampa sailed into Howard's dreams clearly the vast majority of this nations voters [ our new green /left are never going to be part of that]did not want open door migration and never will.
No one from any party will ever lead this nation with polices not insuring Australia owns the door keys.
International pressure seems to force our hand, our polices formed by others ,but that will prove unworkable down the track .
We need migration and have prospered from it in the past , we will have it for many years to come and prosper from it again .
And in the rush to be warm and cuddly I ask the left [as a worker and a trade unionist] to remember Australians too have a right to a culture and to vote as they wish.
Allan Bell
Dear Sir,
Once again, while not in complete harmony with, but greatly impressed by , your consistently relevant, honest and sometime confrontational editorial content, which is in stark contrast to other blatantly biased publications. I was particularly impressed by your latest article "The Unmaking of History "December 21, 2001, and specifically, your almost textbook emulation of a socialist John the Baptist, in your painful and plaintiff cry of angst to the intellectual wilderness of socialist politics ,pleading for some semblance of Trade Union/Labour Party Solidarity. Let us entreat, that unlike John the "B", you get ahead and not lose a head?
Your persuasive call for self examination, is something which I have always embraced on a personal basis, as a consequence of many reasons, the least, not being the loss of a myriad of relationships because of my continued scribbles which advocate, in copious measures, the need for self discipline and the harsh pruning of our "Tree of Liberty" the Union movement. Scribbles which your publication regularly publishes ,even ,when they are in conflict with official Union and A.L.P. policies, and a pruning which is necessary, to excise the deliberately oblique ambitions, of those personal empire builders in the parliamentary and Trade Union spheres, who, like aphids suck on its sap and return nothing except their own enhanced reflection, in which we the plebs are permitted to bask ,as the life slowly drains from and emaciates us, until we resemble shrivelled prunes both mentally and physically.
I can assure those "Comrades" who have been swift to cast stones, at me, that while my paper scratching continues to create this spiteful emotion from them; then I will continue to exercise my right of "freedom of expression" as I am reassured by this aggressive response, that life in the Union Movement, no matter how Proterozoic is not yet extinct, and the next step in the process of renewal will be to replace the retarded but already predisposed gene pool with something more complex than the single cell amoeba pond life which is and has been the ascendant influence for quite some time..
Also the self evident truth in your editorial comment:-
"It's an adage that is sometimes sadly dismissed as a clich�: those who choose to ignore their history are doomed to repeat it."
This is not just some flippant homily, it is a reality, but it is also a comfort zone which is used by those cowards who choose to roll over rather that fight for their rights, those who would rather trade off their own warriors than risk the need for them to battle, and who will only demand what they want from those they perceive to be weaker and vulnerable, and then they spin a story to suit and excuse their abhorrent behaviour.
At the risk of alienation , I must disagree philosophically with your statement :- "And most bizarrely of all, the Labour Party, licking its wounds from losing an election that appeared 'unlosable' dealing with its hurt by turning on its only true ally - the union movement. "
I do not believe, that this was an unlosable election, or in defeat a turning on its "only true ally", but an honest acceptance of the pre-ordainment of this loss and the forced reassessment as to the dramatic change in societal acceptance of the culture of "Individualism" over "Pseudo Collectivism".
While the somewhat sullied Branch Structure, in some electorates, is being utilised in a manner similar to the method in which control over the French Assembly in 1787 was corruptly gained. A basic mathematical formula was used, where the numbers were calculated and then divided into committees to enable 44 to be a majority of 140 by dividing them into 7 separate committees consisting of 22 members, every question to be decided not by a majority of persons but a majority of committees thereby 11 votes would be a majority in a committee and four committees a majority of seven, control could be claimed as democratic, but absolute.
This is sustained by the ideological perversions nurtured by some in the Trade Union movement during its shameful years of "False Consensus", in which we "The Boofheads", were all compelled to do what our betters commanded, and has, like the proverbial chickens, now come home to roost. This catastrophic awakening , could have been avoided , if only the sudden appearance of "The Silence "by the rank and file in both Unions and the Party , had not been ignored and erroneously ,but deliberately for the purposes of expediency whispered as , and promoted to, this self styled parasitical aristocracy ,temporarily ensconced in their ivory towers , as a sign of mob satisfaction.
How long will this assumption of superiority by moronic political toadies and their denials of reality persist? , and at the risk of a further branding as a heretic ,I would quote , Adam Smith (1723-1790) the great Scottish philosopher and economist best known for "The Wealth of Nations", his pioneering book on free trade and market economics.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner but from their regard to their own interest."
Human nature has not changed and still revolves on the axis of self importance, so, surely the "History" lesson to be learned here is; how that epitome of Toryism, Maggie Thatcher, drew her strength from her enemies, by not only subterfuge but a massaging of the ego and an appeal to self interest.
As a grocer's daughter, I am sure she used to ponder on the picture of Samson and the Lion on the Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup can, depicting the riddle posed by Samson to the Philistines:
Out of the eater came forth food,
and out of the strong came forth sweetness."
Samson's question was itself the answer.
Sweetness does come from strength, but it is an inner strength of faith, of belief in one's own rights and justice, from a belief in our destiny and an understanding and appreciation of our past. Only in our strength of will and of character can achieve any level of sweetness for us in these difficult times.
The wishful thinking and feel good words from and to the fraudsters, tricksters' show-ponies, spin doctors and confidence men, plus the pandering to the many special interest groups and their dubious and corrupted political correctness is not strength.
In this case, the dead Lion is not the source of sweetness, but false idealisms of a putrid and corrupt carcass and the pursuit of personal gain and filthy lucre tainted with the same blood of betrayal, as the thirty pieces of silver.
The true strength of the Union Movement, was held in the acceptance and understanding as to the rectitude of our rights to economic and social justice.
Having commented on this excellent editorial "The Unmaking of History "and shared my loss of acquaintance through the expression of my beliefs, I would also like to share my feelings about these fair weather friends, and the emotion of pride I have at offending these cowardly camp followers, my feelings being personified by two old Irish sayings which I learned from my Grandfather, a saddler from County Wexford in Ireland:
"I couldn't give a tinkers curse"
"Don't feed strawberries to pigs"
Furthermore, as one who has regularly attended the Kirk, and has on many occasions, with public shame stood on the stool of repentance, I can also relate to this appropriate and descriptive poetry by the Scottish Bard, Rabbie Burns, who was not only a wee bit touched, but a contemporary social commentator through his writings, and through his attitudes a vanguard reformer. So in summation, and appreciation to those who have so malevolently defamed me, through participation and /or omission I offer the words of the Bard:
To A Louse
On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet, At the Kirk in 1786
Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her-
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.
Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.
Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow'rin height O' Miss' bonnet.
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' grey as ony groset:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum.
I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?
O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin:
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!
Robert Burns
Born 25th January 1759,
Died 21st July 1796
Tom Collins
John Robertson |
***************
Firstly, I would like to welcome you all to today's conference.
Our goal is to develop strategies to increase racial and cultural harmony in the workplace.
It is important work that goes to the heart of trade union values.
It will be difficult work because it is about bringing out the best instincts of people, who are currently insular and insecure.
And as the research that I will present in a few minutes shows, it will be challenging work.
But it is a job that we, as a movement, can not shirk.
Union Values
While the current debates around asylum seekers, refugees and immigration have been thrust on us by external political events, they are issues that we must confront as a movement.
The Tampa issue and now mandatory detention are being used as a weapon to split Australia down the middle and it is our responsibility, as the representatives of working people, to meet it head on.
I've taken a leadership role in both the union movement and the ALP because I believe these are issues that go to the heart of unionism
� Racism seeks to divide the community and the workplace. If workers are divided it's the boss who will benefit.
� The push to blind Australians to the notion of a fair go is as much a threat to unionism as it is an attack on the victims of repression who have become political pawns.
We must switch the debate on refugees to one that is underlined by a position of goodwill. Not fear and ignorance.
It is fear and ignorance that the Conservative parties are exploiting so skilfully.
Our challenge is to take the oxygen out of their campaign by spreading understanding across the workplace on a broader front because understanding is the necessary first step towards a more compassionate position.
We must look at ways of using our networks of delegates and activists to counter these cheap attacks on those less fortunate.
We also need to remember not to put those with a different view in a box as racists or being xenophobic. We must engage people in the debate on this issue because it is engagement that will over time turn the tide on racism.
Today we will deal with two fundamental questions in promoting understanding and compassion:
� What is our message?
� How do we get it out?
Our Research:
To put our challenge into some kind of context, Labor Council commissioned a private polling into the attitudes of both unionists and non-unionists.
The results are enlightening to say the least:
* There is overwhelming support across the community for the Howard Government's stance on Tampa - with majority support over all demographics.
* The support is slightly weaker among union members, but it is still overwhelming - some 58 per cent of members. In fact the most significant variable was income - the higher a household income the less likely they were to support Howard's stand. This shows that it is the union heartland that has been most susceptible to the Howard wedge.
* Even in the most affluent group, more than 50 per cent support the Howard line. But income - and education - are identified as the variable most linked to a more compassionate position on the issue.
The survey also dealt with responses to a series of propositions - and it is here that we can take some heart.
Where the proposition is worded in an emotive manner, the vast majority of respondents accept it -
� For example: about 80 per cent agreed with the proposition "If people want to come to Australia because they are fearful of being persecuted in their own country, they should go through the proper channels of face mandatory detention".
The gap between union and non-union was not great.
� Nearly as many - a massive 77 per cent - concurred with the alarmist proposition "any softening of Australia's current policy would lead to a massive influx of illegal immigrants and would be unfair to those who are waiting their rightful turn in the queue"
Again, the gap between union and non-union was not great.
� But when a more compassionate proposition was put, the majority of people came around.
More than 50 per cent accepted the statement that "seeking asylum in Australia or a country other than one's own is NOT illegal, nor is it queue jumping. It is a fundamental right of any person experiencing persecution in their country of origin.
Interestingly, in this case union members were far more receptive to the proposition.
What this says is that most people have a hard-line position on asylum seekers when the propaganda rhetoric is used, but they are open to being brought around.
As Bob McMullan noted during the election campaign: the electorate's first instinct is always inward-looking and self-centred.
It's second instinct is a more compassionate one.
The challenge of leaders is to bring people from their first instinct to their second one.
The simple reality is that we are losing the propaganda war - or rather the Howard Government has played it masterfully.
The Ten Commandments
In preparing for today's seminar, I stumbled across a document on propaganda, developed by the US Institute for Propaganda analysis in 1937.
It sets out the 'Ten Commandments for Propaganda':
1. Divide and Conquer
2. Tell the People What they Want
3. The Bigger the Lie, the More People Will Believe It
4. Always Appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator
5. Generalise As Much as Possible
6. Use 'Expert' testimonial
7. Always Refer to the 'Authority' of your Office
8. Stack the Cards with Information
9. A Confused People Are Easily Led
10. Get the 'Plain Folks' on the Bandwagon.
And remember: when all else fails, use FEAR
You can see how this is almost a textbook for the approach of the Conservative forces.
Our challenge as a union movement is to create our own Ten Commandments of Enlightenment - not just for this campaign, but for taking a leadership role in unifying workplaces generally.
They might run as follows:
1. Set out to Unify our Constituency
2. Be prepared to argue an unpopular viewpoint
3. Trust people with the truth
4. Appeal to the better instincts in our membership
5. Embrace the complexity of issues
6. Focus on real people and their stories, not the easy stereotypes
7. Take the debate out into the workplace
8. Take the time to explain the issue
9. Be patient, persistent and respectful of other views
10. Lead the debate, but make sure we bring our members with you
And when all else fails, preach compassion.
If any of our leaders had adopted these commandments, I wonder how different the research would be.
Let's use today as the first step to creating a campaign consistent with these themes are winning back our people from the scurge of Howard's wedge.
This is an edited version of a speech presented to Labor Council's Workplace Harmony conference on February 14
by Peter Lewis
Wayne Swan |
In your recent speech to the Fabian Society you argue Labor had no choice but to follow Howard on Tampa at the last Federal Election. The weakness you say is that Knowledge Nation was not sold well enough. Is there a scenario where you think an issue like long term education infrastructure could ever override an emotive wedge issue like Tampa?
Well I believe that the Knowledge Nation did override in the minds of many if not all the attempts by Howard to create the wedges. I believe we won a lot of voters in the middle on that issue. But we didn't win enough because of the wedge politics he was playing with the Tampa issue.
We originally opposed the Tampa Legislation because it legalised murder, and that was what caused our political problem. Later on, when we voted for the revised legislation, we were voting for a Bill that took into account almost all of the objections that we had raised when the Bill first came into the House. The problem we had was that we were seen as being unsympathetic on border security as a result of voting down the very first Bill and it took us a long time to recover from that.
When Kim Beazley outlined our true position on Tampa, why we had voted down the first Bill and why we had passed the second Bill in the Leaders' Debate that was really the first time that we had successfully explained to most people in the community what we'd done. The problem was, there were many who weren't watching that Debate.
Were you broadly supportive of that line that you took on Tampa at the last election?
Well the line that we took was entirely reasonable, the problem we've had with this issue is the way in which the Government has exploited immigration and security issues, the language that it has used and the way that it has been very provocative in it's approach.
But Labor is always going to be very vulnerable to these sorts of wedge attacks isn't it?
Yes we are, which is why I argue in my speech that we needed a very broad and bold agenda, not just across the traditional areas of health and education and job security but also in the areas of constitutional and parliamentary reform.
You'd be aware of the emergence of Labor for Refugees. To what extent should the parliamentary wing follow the rank and file members even if at the least this may not maximise it's political success?
It's not a question of maximising political success...the question is what is the right policy in relation to border security and allowing asylum seekers into the Country. That's the question that we're debating, it's not the other.
Labor for Refugees is not fully representative of the ALP branch membership in my state, I'm not aware of what it's like in NSW, but they do have a legitimate opinion and it is their right to argue that opinion. That's why we are having a debate about border security and asylum seeker policy generally. It's a debate that I welcome. I don't question the motives of people who have those views. But what I do say is, have a look closely at what the Labor parliamentary wing has been saying, what it did when it voted down the first Bill, what it did when the second one went through. I don't believe that there has been an accurate communication of our position in either of those instances.
Going broader beyond just Tampa, do you see that there is a danger for Labor that the people that are active party members may end up having views as electorally popular as the people who stand for election would like them to be?
No ... it's not a question of every view we have having to be electorally popular, the question is what's the right policy for the country. That's what's at stake in the border protection/asylum seekers debate. We are not just responding in the parliamentary wing to what is the most electorally popular, hopefully we will be the government after the next election and we will have a policy which is soundly based and which can be implemented and we will be talking about this debate in those terms.
Moving on to other aspects of your Fabian Society Speech you identify the missing middle as the "political demographic that's now up for grabs". Which traditional Labor values do you see as being attractive to this group?
Well the missing middle is a very broad group, that's the first point to make, the second point is that, the electorate is more diverse than ever and, the values that these people have, I think, ARE the very traditional Labor values. The value of reward for hard work, the value of fairness at work and in family life, they are timeless values and they appeal to these people.
What of your own core constituency in your portfolio, the disadvantaged groups in society? What do you see in the Howard government agenda that appeals to these people?
Oh, well the Howard government is not attempting to appeal to that constituency at all, or to the constituency that wants to see them get a fair go. The Labor Party has always had the view that we represent not only the working people but also those people who need a hand up in life and it's our mission as a Party not to leave them behind, which is why we are extremely critical of the approach that the Government takes when the likes of Tony Abbott and others are out there vilifying the unemployed. What they are seeking to do is to say that those in the middle who are under financial pressure, 'you shouldn't take out your frustrations on those above you who are doing very well or the Government who is doing nothing, you should take it out on those below you.' That is why you've got the government constantly out there seeking to imply that anyone on benefits is potentially a cheat.
Well, unlike some of your colleagues, you've defended the influence of Unions in the ALP and you say that factions are part of the problem. But don't you personally have the best of both worlds coming from the AWU faction in Queensland?
Well I come from the right in Queensland, and the fact is we've all got to move on. We've got to have a look at where the Party is. The Party has always had factions, that's point number one. Point number two, factions do perform an important management role, but in an environment where the rank and file membership base is shrinking as the population grows then the structures of the Party have got to adapt to ensure that the Party is more firmly based in the wider community. And if you have 25 or 50 people voting at preselection for a State based seat, 100 to 150 at most for a Federal seat, then your Party is not firmly based in the community it's seeking to represent. And that's why I've made the point that we need to be looking at these policies, it's not a question of factions or something else, it's a question of where the Party's going in relation to the community it's seeking to represent. And that is as an important a question for the Party as it is for the Union Movement as a whole.
What's your general view on the quality of ALP candidates being served up?
My general view is that they are pretty good, but we could do better. I think in NSW for example, the last election we had some pretty good marginal seat candidates. Frankly, it was a shame that some of them went down. I won't start naming them cause I don't want to play favourites. But the question I'm raising is not so much now, or seeking to avoid debate about political issues now, it's where we're heading into the future.
One of your proposals to the future, which I note you don't say will be implemented overnight, is for primary style election. How would you see that working in an Australian context?
In relation to primaries, I was just trying to give another example of the sort of structure, which might broaden base of the Party in the community. The idea of some sort of primary style thing is only way you could achieve these ends. Obviously the are upsides and downsides to any reform in this area, but I think we need to have as our aim a process that delivers candidates who have the advantage of strong community support and we need to involve more in each community to have a say in the affairs of the Party.
Finally what's your expectation of the current review of the election loss? What would you like to see coming out of this?
I deliberately couched the things I had to say in the Fabian Society speech in very broad terms because I don't want to pre-empt either the views of members or anyone else who is making submissions.
What I did say was that our Party has a proud tradition as a social democratic force. I said that many of the ideas we took to the last election were consistent with this but might have been better communicated to a sceptical public. I suppose I'm saying there is a core message about social investment and about enabling opportunity that has broad appeal and that is consistent with our tradition. The real challenge is being as bold as we can be about this and other reforms such as constitutional and parliamentary reform to cut through to the people, particularly the missing middle who really need a Labor Government.
Enron |
***************
When multi-millionaire Enron executive, John Baxter, was discovered dead in his Mercedes, mid-January, the game was up - not just for the company, its man, and the employees and shareholders whose life savings they helped gamble away. Enron, should come to read, Endgame, for the fundamentalist market experiment it represented.
Enron, and rip, shit or bust CEO Kenneth Lay, were the darlings of the US business right. They forced their mantra of "market, market, and more market" on economies from their native Texas to India, Britain and South America to resounding cheers from The Economist, Fortune magazine, Wall St, Harvard Business School, business professors, analysts and journalists.
Lay's constant demands were deregulation and privatisation. His vision was a dog-eat-dog market that could be applied to everything from water, gas and electricity to gambling on the weather through the futures markets.
The CEO and his company spent millions cultivating George Bush and weren't above taking the crooked route to ensure control of public utilities in places like India.
Lay was a hands-on, can-do sorta Texan guy. The market loved his style - small wonder as, in not much more than a decade, he transformed a Houston-based gas pipeline operator into the seventh largest company in the US, boosting its share price by a staggering 1700 percent.
Last November, however, Enron shares tumbled 85 percent in a single day from their high of more than $US90. The following week they were at junk bond levels and today they trade amongst those fascinated by memorabilia.
When Enron filed for bankruptcy it represented the biggest corporate collapse in US history.
Today, no fewer than 10 official enquiries are picking over the carcass. The real questions, though, are not so much how it failed but why the illusion of success was allowed, and encouraged, for so long.
But this is not just a story of a US tall poppy's fall. Enron raises issues central to Australia's future. Not least ...
POLITICAL PAYOLA:
Can democracy survive a system in which politicians and political parties are dependent on the support of big business?
Enron was a classic example of how corporate power undermines the democratic process by donation and intensive lobbying.
The energy trading giant bankrolled politicians where and when it had to. Not just its favourite Republicans, but Democrats as well because under the US federal system many assets and opportunities were still controlled by Democrat administrations.
Enron spent $US2.4 billion on political influence in the US alone - $1.7b for Republicans and $700 million to Democrats.
Its favourite political representative was former Texas Governor, George W. Bush. During the 2000 US presidential campaign, Lay, personally kicked more than half a million dollars into the Bush kitty.
Over the last decade, returns on those investments were massive. Energy markets were opened up and regulations were watered down or eliminated.
Rarely was the going better than in Texas where Bush appeared to do the bidding of the buddy he called "Kenny Boy". At secret meetings with Bush officials, oil and gas interests wrote lax rules on emission controls with predictable air quality outcomes.
Not to worry, Bush introduced sweeping tort reform, making it difficult for ordinary citizens to sue corporations. Bush appointed Enron nominee, Pat Wood, to head Texas' public utility commission, which got on with the deregulation energy companies had been demanding.
In his new job, Bush moved quickly to slash income taxes, heavily weighted in favour of the top five percent of earners, and backed a stimulus package replete with corporate tax breaks and amnesties.
In August, 2000, he appointed "Kenny Boy" an adviser to his presidential transitional team, then redrafted national energy policy to the point where it was labeled a "polluters charter".
In the months before Enron imploded, executives held six meetings with vice-president Dick Cheney and other top Bush officials.
Cheney has repeatedly refused to release documentation from those meetings. In the light of the $1 billion Enron executives contributed to Republican coffers in the preceding three years, there has been a storm of protest.
The players, however, are but a sideline. The real issue is the rules of the game.
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF UTILITIES:
Enron based its fortune on grabbing control of vital public services particularly, in the early days, natural gas, electricity and water.
This wasn't restricted to its American operations, it dived into British water when it bought privatised Wessex Water for $2.2 billion, and carved huge profits out of similar services in India and South America.
Rarely did this ownership do much for the public.
Besides air quality issues in the US, Enron was a major player in the privatisation of Californian power. Residents and businesses in that state faced rolling blackouts and price blowouts as Enron made hay.
Enron was the US' biggest electricity trader at a time when Californian prices soared to $593 a megawatt hour, more than 10 times what they had been 12 months earlier.
It's record in the developing world, where Lay's hands-off demands were backed by the IMF and World Bank, was simply atrocious. Enron is still the only company to have a whole Amnesty International report devoted to its activities. The document was a digest of human rights abuses from Asia to South America.
Enron was at the center of one of India's biggest corruption scandals in which huge sums lined the pockets of politicians who backed the privatisation of power companies.
DEREGULATION:
Lay's mantra has long been deregulation. Winning politicians to that corner allowed his company to play fast and loose with a minimum of supervision, let alone rules.
This issue was highlighted by the Californian debacle and the company's eventual collapse.
In the latter, lax accounting and reporting regimes allowed Enron to hide its true position from investors and employees for years. The company used "special partnerships" to hide debt and simply failed to report significant losses until the writing was on the wall.
On the way through, it boosted profits by benefiting from Governments weakening or removing rules on such things as competition, pollution and safety.
Such was the company's attraction to those of similar ideological hue that, in the same issue, Fortune Magazine rated Enron the "It stock" and conceded its operation was "largely impenetrable" to outsiders.
"In the end," Fortune concluded "it boils down to a matter of faith".
While that might be good enough for the gambling end of the stockmarket, it is way less than what citizens are entitled to expect of public policy.
CONSULTANCIES AND CONFLICTING INTERESTS
Consultants are playing an ever-bigger role in an increasingly deregulated Australian economy, with mixed results.
The problem becomes acute when reputable professionals diversify their involvement in the same business.
Trans-national accountants, Arthur Andersen, under questioning for their role in Australia's HIH collapse, have found themselves in the Enron hot seat.
Not only were they the company's accountants, responsible for reporting its factual position to the market, but they boosted their annual earn to more than $US100 million by doubling as consultants to the business.
Andersen employees have admitted shredding Enron records, raising significant question marks over their dual role.
There is widespread acceptance in the modern economy of business diversifying from its core product into anything that returns a dollar. It was the same blueprint that led a Texan pipeline company into ventures as diversified as the internet and gambling on futures.
EMPLOYMENT POLICIES
In line with its leading role as a new-right mover and shaker, Enron was largely a non-union operation. It ran a strategy, known as "rank and yank" that saw 10 percent of the workforce dismissed each year in a bid to keep survivors on their toes.
Enron was about individualism, competition and fanatical loyalty to high-profile bosses Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling. Winners were promoted and rewarded rapidly. Andrew Fastow, architect of its controversial and possibly illegal off-balance-sheet debts, was 36 when he was made chief financial officer.
Before the crash, the Economist described the internal culture as "cult-like".
On December 3, 2001, Enron laid off its 4100 employees and bankruptcy cost them all their entitlements and the bulk of their pension plans.
Enron's commitment to individualism and entrepreneurialism eliminated any opportunity for either constructive tension or the questioning that comes from an independent, organised workforce.
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TIMELINE
July 1985: Natural gas pipeline company, Enron, formed by merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth.
November, 1999: EnronOnLine launched - the world's first global trading website
September, 2000: Company chairman, Kenneth Lay, contributes $US290,000 to George Bush's presidential election campaign.
January, 2000: Bush names Lay an adviser to his transitional team/ Enron shares hit $US90.56
August, 2001: Enron vice-president, Sherron Watkins, warns Lay of questionable accounting practices which could lead company to "implode on a wave of accounting scandals."
October, 2001:
- Andersen lawyer, Nancy Temple, emails Houston officer reminding of the firm's document destruction policy. Company calls the email "routine" some executives label it "unprecedented".
- Enron reports $US618m loss and discloses a $US1.2 billion reduction in shareholders' equity.
- Enron under investigation by securities and exchange commission over possible conflicts of interest between the company and its partnerships.
- Financial controller, Andrew Fastow, sacked.
November, 2001: Enron admits overstating profits by $US600 million, since 1997
December 2, 2001: Enron files for bankruptcy, the largest in US history
December 3, 2001: Enron sacks 4100 workers, most have their pension plans, full of Enron shares, wiped out.
January 9, 2002: Justice Department opens criminal investigation.
January 10, 2002: Andersen admits its employees destroyed Enron documents.
January 17, 2002: Enron fires Andersen for destroying its documents.
January 24, 2002: Lay quits as chairman and chief executive.
January 25, 2002: John Baxter, former Enron vice-chairman, found dead with gunshot wound to head. Cornoner returns suicide verdict.
January 27, 2002: US vice-president, Dick Cheney, refuses to divulge details of meeting with Enron executives to discuss energy policy.
Bushfire Mayhem |
Burning Question Smoulders
While the state's volunteer firefighters were deservedly feted for their heroic role during the Christmas bushfires, the crisis again highlighted the mad administration of fire-fighting in NSW.
While the Weekend Warriors were putting their lives on the line, professional fire-fighters who wanted to weigh in were told to stay on holidays because the overtime would blow the budget.
At the heart of the problem is the political power of the volunteer service and the personal empire volunteer fire chief Phil Koperburg has created against the high cost of managing a professional fire-fighting service. The obvious solution would be to merge the two services, but then the pros would calls the shots.
The sensitivity was obvious when Fire Brigade Employees Union state secretary Chris Read raised the issue during the blazes, he was cut down in pointedly personal attacks by both the Premier and Koperburg. Unperturbed, Read is wearing the attack as his own personal medal.
Bush Fires
US president George Bush indicated his country would make the most of its status as the world's sole superpower. Having crushed the Taliban and Afghanistan-based Al Queda network, he put Iran, Iraq and North Korea on notice and told the rest of the world - like it or lump it.
Bush evoked echoes of the Second World War, labeling his new targets an "axis of evil" without describing what their axis (common, or fixed line) might be.
Specifically, Dubya lashed their capacity to produce and use "weapons of mass destruction". Interesting, given that his own country is by far the largest producer of such hardware and supplied, at a price, many of the ingredients in Saddam Hussein's chemical kitchen.
By way of turning up the heat, Bush presented Congress with a demand for a $US 48 million increase on what is already, far-and-away, the world's largest military budget.
Flying High to Crash Landing?
Wouldn't it have been fantastic if the Howard Government had put as much energy, money and commitment into saving the 16,000 jobs threatened by Ansett's collapse as they did into keeping 400 or so Afghan refugees out of the country?
While the Government has sat on its hands it has been left to the union movement to try and salvage jobs and protect entitlements.
Now the end game is near and with smart use of corporations law, solid on-the-ground activism and workplace commitment Ansett workers and their unions - against the odds - have given the administrators a chance to pull off what four months ago looked an unlikely sale.
Saving jobs still hinges on the Tesna sale but at the very least Ansett employees will get what they are entitled to.
Million Person Crawl
The ACTU released figures showing that more than 1.4 million Australians took real pay cuts in the preceding 12 months as award increases lagged behind inflation.
The study, using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, revealed that 80 percent of all award workers suffered real wage cuts and that the low paid, those earning less than $13 an hour, were worst affected.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet said the figures proved award workers needed a substantial pay boost from this year's living wage case to maintain living standards.
True Colours?
Further questions on the political whereabouts of Mark Latham were raised by a scathing attack on Labor Party members seeking a more compassionate stance on asylum seekers. Not only did Latham endorse John Howard-Phillip Ruddock immigration policy but he echoed their tone.
The Member for Werriwa linked illegal immigration with welfare fraud and juvenile crime, and described Woomera protests as "atrocities". He accused activists seeking a policy review of betraying Labor principles and supporting an "elitist charter".
Latham's comments came in a letter to NSW Labor Council secretary, John Robertson, who had urged a "more humanitarian and compassionate approach by the ALP".
Campaign Triumph
The UN agency responsible for labour standards, the ILO, proved it had teeth when luxury lingerie manufacturer, Triumph, pulled the pin on its Burmese manufacturing operation.
Triumph was the first company targeted by ILO sanctions after labour and Burmese activists claimed it exploited child labour, and supported that country's military dictatorship.
Triumph ceased Australian operations, last year, after human rights abuses were targeted in a bra-burning demonstrating outside Sydney department store David Jones.
European activists stepped up their campaign, using the slogan "Support Breasts, Not Dictators". Triumph announced in January that it would cease bra production in Burma "within four months".
Reebok Rejected
Indonesian labour activist, Dita Sari, turned down a $50,000 grant from sporting apparel giant Reebok in protest against meagre wages paid by the company.
"Their factories do not pay a living wage. The pay packet cannot cover basic needs," she told Associated Press.
Sari, who visited Australian unionists in 1999, said it would have been hypocritical to have accepted the Reebok award although her campaign for better wages and conditions could have done with the financial boost.
Sari, jailed by the regime of former president Suharto, has been organising rallies and protests on behalf of the low paid since her 1998 release.
Reebok factories in Indonesia, China and Vietnam pay labourers less than $2 an hour and analysts estimate the labour content of a $70 pair of Reeboks, produced in that area of the world, at less than $1.
Mayor Goes Troppo
And just to prove that, eventually, the summer heat got to everyone, Brisbane's Labor mayor, Jim Soorley, went right off the deep end during a bus drivers' dispute in the city.
Soorley labeled RTBU secretary, Owen Doogan, a "foreign import union official" and linked Brisbane City Council bus drivers, acting in defence of a colleague, with "terrorists".
Stunned Queensland Council of Unions secretary, Grace Grace, was obviously operating from cooler climes when she said Soorley's comments had gone "beyond the bounds of normal behaviour".
"The comments made by Mr Soorley are unprecedented by any Lord Mayor of Brisbane. Citizens and workers deserve better behaviour from a Labor Lord Mayor," she added.
The Solidarity Choir |
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One of the earliest May Day marches in the world took place in Barcaldine in Queensland in 1891, during the famous Shearers Strike. Henry Lawson wrote
'Freedom on the Wallaby' for the occasion, with the lines:
So we must fly a rebel flag as others did before us/ And we must sing a rebel song and join in rebel chorus
Banjo Paterson, too, was moved by the shearers' strike and many people see his song 'Waltzing Matilda' as taking the side of the unionist workers, the swagman, in their battle against the squatter station owners and the police troupers and soldiers drafted in to help break the strike.
Up came the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred/Up came the troupers one two three
Of course long before Paterson and Lawson, poets had lent their support to the workers cause. The convict 'Frank The Poet' was poking fun at the rulers and those who benefited from slave labour half a century before while the Scottish poet Robert Burns had immortalised the notion of equality for all, before any transport ships came to the 'Fatal Shores' of Australia, in his 'A Man�s A Man For A' That'
Since Lawson, generations of Australian poets and songwriters have added to our store of union songs. Tex Morton recorded 'Sergeant Small' and had the record banned, Helen Palmer wrote 'The Ballad of 1891', Dorothy Hewett wrote 'Weevils in the Flower' and 'Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod', Clem Parkinson wrote 'The Judge and the Shipowner', Glen Tomassetti wrote 'Don't Be Too Polite Girls', Don Henderson wrote 'Isa', Denis Kevans wrote 'The Roar of the Crowd'. Many of these songs began to appear on vinyl records in the 1960s onwards and appear in union songbooks.
Unions have international links across the world and many took up the cause of peace during the Vietnam War. Unions took up the anti-apartheid cause in support of workers in South Africa, supported the resistance against Indonesian invasion if East Timor, and have a long history of active support of unionists in other countries.
This aspect of union work has been reflected in songs, the protest songs of the 1960s, Rock Against Racism in the 1970s, the exchange of union songs themselves. On a Sydney May Day March you would be likely hear the Chilean song 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated', or a South African freedom song, or 'There Is Power In A Union' from Billy Bragg in London. In the era of 'Globalisation of capitalism' international links are as vital as ever.
In the last 10 years unions, singers and songwriters have collaborated on CDs such as 'Jumping Fences', 'Union is Strength' and 'Trains of Treasure'. The MUA and RTBU have held regular annual song writing competitions. This year the NSW Labor Council is launching a song writing competition with a handsome $5000 prize (or about 2 months, average, union fought for, wages!). Well worth taking a week or two off to write.
We have an interesting and living tradition of songs about the struggle for union rights, for Aboriginal rights, for women�s rights and for human rights. Today�s songwriters and singers write as powerfully as ever before. Think of Midnight Oil, Kev Carmody, Paul Kelly as popular examples. Our song writing tradition is so strong that, during the 1998 wharf lockout, I collected over 30 songs and poems in one month of that historic struggle of unions against the illegal tactics of the employer in conspiracy with the Howard government.
How do you write a union song? I don�t think anyone knows the answer to that but it hasn't stopped them from having a go. Woody Guthrie wrote, 'Maybe you got a new song. You have, if you said what you really had to say about how the old world looks to you, or how it ought to be fixed'. Why are they written? Some say it's just preaching to the converted. I think that's actually an important task in itself. Songs that change the world usually do so by strengthening the conviction of those already converted to the cause. And the cause hasn't changed. Look at the increasing attempts by large employers to leave workers without jobs, without superannuation, without their legal entitlements. The same 'legalised theft' the employers always resort to.
We live in a country of great natural resources with a highly skilled population yet the rewards are being creamed off before our eyes by a class that ruthlessly demands ever more profit. Unions are faced by a class-war government intent on making laws that deprive workers of rights fought for and won long ago. We find ourselves being pushed backwards just as the convicts were, just as those shearers were in 1891. One way we can motivate our resistance is through our culture of resistance. That�s why we have to write more songs.
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Mark Gregory is a folklorist with a particular interest in songs of the labour movement. He sings, plays the banjo and works as a web designer. Heis an active unionist and member of the CPSU. Visit his 'Union Songs' web site at: http://crixa.com/muse/unionsong/ for a growing collection of songs and poems from around the world.
by Terry Bell *
President Thabo Mbeki |
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A tale of two cities, heavy with irony and laden with symbolism, was played out over the summer. One of its more interesting features was the attendance of two prominent South Africans.
Their presence at the respective venues summarises quite well the main ideological and policy debates in the globalising world of today. President Thabo Mbeki attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) in New York; while Cosatu president, Willie Madisha, was at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
New York is, of course, the brash capital of rampant capitalism; Porto Alegre the centre of the rapidly growing movement against "corporate-driven globalisation".
The WEF was founded privately in Davos, Switzerland as a discussion and lobbying forum for the world's top industrialists and financiers. On an annual basis, they wine, dine and woo the leaders of governments around the world.
The WSF was set up two years ago in direct response to the WEF. It draws together a much larger, more diverse and often fractious group of delegates than the WEF and is committed to the idea of an "alternative" to the present world economic order. Although made up of a variety of ideological strains, the WSF tends to be united in condemning the WEF as an "elitist, rich old boys' club". This "Davos club" is seen as arrogant and authoritarian, even dangerous to the future security of the bulk of the world's population.
But for all the often fiery rhetoric, this thrust from Brazil is not so much revolutionary as reformist; a case of Maynard Keynes versus Milton Friedman; of interventionism versus the anarchy of the market.
At Porto Alegre, the names and ideas of Mao, Trotsky, Lenin and Marx may hover on the fringes, but the centre stage will be held by the likes of Noam Chomsky, an incisive analyst and radical reformer. His opposite number in New York will be seen in the likes of the currency speculating billionaire philanthropist, George Soros.
The two highest profile South African representatives to stride these two stages were Mbeki and Madisha. Mbeki was in New York talking investment and the extolling the virtues of South Africa's liberal macro-economic regime. Madisha was in Porto Alegre, extolling the possibility of "another world" and building links with the large and historically militant trade union federation, CUT.
This was particularly easy to do in Porto Alegre, capital of the province of Rio Grande do Sul, since both are governed by the CUT-supported Workers' Party (PT). But there was some apparent common ground between the two gatherings.
Both tended to agree that increasing poverty and the social and political ramifications of this, amount to the biggest problem facing the world today. Both also tended to agree that the world has a surplus of almost every basic necessity. The parting of the ways comes with the ideas for how to deal with this situation.
This is our own macro-economic battle on an international plane; GEAR (growth employment and redistribution) versus the social equity orientation supported by the trade unions.
The arguments about the need for still greater growth and higher productivity in order to encourage a greater trickle down of wealth should once again emanate from the corridors of the WEF. From the WSF should come freshly packaged versions of the need to redistribute existing wealth in order to encourage equitable growth.
At a fundamental level, these points of departure are impossible to reconcile. So for all the recent murmurings of toenadering between government and Cosatu nothing much appears to have changed. Despite the unions being under the whip of recession and economic restructuring, their battle continues, only becoming more clearly international.
Even the South-South "trade butterfly" touted by the department of trade and industry is now in the process of having a mirror trade union structure created. This "butterfly" concept advanced the notion of increased trade and investment between South Africa � the "body" extending northwards into Africa �Asia and South America. Brazil would be key to the "wing" in the west, India and South Korea to the east.
Madisha's talks with CUT were part of a process begun recently, which should see Cosatu working much more closely with the Brazilian unions and with the presently embattled and highly militant unions of South Korea. A "solidarity butterfly" seems in the making. Perhaps it will be another metaphorical butterfly that stings like a bee.
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Terry Bell is a Cape Town-based freelance writer, columnist and editor, banned and in exile from South Africa for 27 years. A trade unionist, socialist and former political detainee, has written the syndicated "Inside Labour" column since 1996.
An early editor of Anti-Apartheid News in Britain, keynote speaker at the inaugural conference of the NZ Anti-Apartheid Movement, NZ Peace Squadron activist, founder-principal of the primary division of the Somafco school for SA exiles in Tanzania, and co-ordinator of the international "Friends of Moses Mayekiso" campaign.
Author of the recently published "Unfinished Business - South Africa, apartheid & truth" written in collaboration with leading SA human rights lawyer and former Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigations unit head, Dumisa Ntsebeza.
John Pilger has said of this book: "...a brilliant, important book that should be read by everybody interested in the truth behind the 'truth and reconciliation' hype of the new South Africa...reveals the cover-ups and charades that allowed the shock troops of apartheid to get away with a crime against humanity."
Unfinished Business may be ordered through this e-mail address - belnews@ wn.apc.org - by fax (below) or from P. O. Box 373, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.
Payment may be via transmission to: T. Bell, Nedbank, Salt River, Cape Town; account number 2021 325385 (please fax/e-mail details of such payments) or by crossed cheque to T. Bell.
PS: we are using any income from the book to finance Understanding Our Past, an attempt to uncover as much hidden apartheid history as we can.
-Tel: +27 +21 +788 9699
Fax: +27 +21 +788 9711-
Howard & Friends |
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A young John Howard was downtown
An old friend, walked up, shook his hands
"Congratulations", his mate said
"Your family's about to expand!"
John Howard looked puzzledly at him
"I don't have a clue what you say"
"But your wife -- she's now eight months pregnant!
I"ve heard the babe's due any day!"
"Well no one's officially told me
But thank you for letting me know.
Believe me, I had no such knowledge,
Maybe that explains why she's grown"
They met again, several weeks later
"Well done!" his hearty friend said
Again, young John Howard was puzzled
He looked up, he paused, scratched his head
"And what have I done now?" he asked him
His friend, though astonished, replied
"You're a father your wife's had a baby!"
His amazement he just could not hide
"Well no one's officially told me
But thank you, that makes me quite happy
Believe me, I had no such knowledge,
Maybe that explains all those nappies"
The years passed, they met just one more time
A street corner, a clear summer's day,
John Howard drove right through a stop sign
Their cars met, in quite a mel�e
His old friend climbed out and went over
"What happened, why didn't you stop?
Why did you fly right past that sign there?"
But John thought this over the top
"Well no one officially told me.
Excuse me, you must understand
Believe me, I had no such knowledge,
Maybe that's why blood's on my hands."
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We'll be making Poetry a regular feature of Workers Online this year - if you want to contribute mailto:[email protected]
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The movie is set in a mythical world of Hobbits, Dwarfs, Elves and Men. Sauron is the Dark Lord of great magical power. His evil servants include Goblins and Orcs. A thousand years before, Sauron was defeated in a great confrontation between good and evil, however the key to his power, his ring, survived and with it so did his spirit.
The ring has come into the possession of a small creature called Frodo, a Hobbit. When its significance is discovered Frodo is conscripted into a quest to destroy the ring, and end the power of Sauron forever.
Frodo must confront his own darker side as he grapples to make sense of the cataclysmic events of which he has become the focus. Why was he chosen to be the ring bearer? What is it about the ring that those that possess it start to fall under its influence? Why does the ring inevitably become so very "precious" to them?
In the central scene of the first book Frodo offers the ring to the Elf Queen Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett. Her response - "In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night!" Galadriel recognises that nobody can withstand the corrupting effect of the power of the ring - especially not a great one such as herself.
Frodo has been chosen as the ring-bearer because of his humble nature and purity of spirit. Upon him the corrupting effect of the ring is diminished. - But, as we discover later in the story, even he is not immune. As the confrontation between good and evil plays out on a larger scale Frodo must fight to win this battle within himself if their quest is to succeed.
The underling theme of Tolkien's story is the corrupting nature of power. The lesson provided by Galadriel and Frodo is that nobody is immune from its effect. The point that Tolkien was making is that such a great concentration of power, such as that contained within the ring, cannot be good. Inevitably power will corrupt its possessor - but some may resist its corrupting effect for longer than others.
The analogy for Labor is that having possessed power for thirteen years the Party is yet to acknowledge, and deal with, the corrupting effect that this long period of power has had upon the Party and its leadership.
The Labor Party is an organisation that pursues power - for a purpose. It should be made up of people that seek to lift the standards and to improve the lives of ordinary working people. But there is a further role: to raise peoples' consciousness so that they can take power and responsibility for themselves. This means handing power over - analogous to the eventual need to withstand temptation and voluntarily destroy the ring.
The ultimate result of this was a third successive election loss for Labor. The moral paucity of the Party was laid bare when Howard brought on the refugee issue. The Labor Party demonstrated that it was prepared to abandon its principles to regain power - thus proving itself unworthy of office.
Has the Party become so familiar with the wielding of power that we pursue it for its own sake? Will we sacrifice anything to get it back? Are we so confident that we perceive ourselves as the "natural party of Government"?
It is perhaps time for the movement to critically review its attitude towards power and the reasons why it should be entrusted with it. It is also perhaps time for those that have personally wielded power for so long, to seek to re-make themselves outside the public sphere.
I suspect that as for Frodo, the real battle will be within ourselves - if we are to achieve victory in our quest for electoral success.
by The Chaser
The Chaser |
Rafter said he's always felt very close to Bermuda, because of the country's enlightened approach to public policy, particularly in the area of income tax rates.
Rafter said the award was flattering because of his great love for Bermuda and its people, but would also have the additional benefit of clarifying his residency status with the Australian Taxation Office.
"Some cynical people in the ATO might think that just because I'm being honoured as a pre-eminent Australian and will spend most of the year travelling around the country to preside at various official ceremonies, I've somehow become an Australian resident for tax purposes." Rafter clarified that his "close emotional ties" with his adopted homeland of Bermuda make that impossible.
As Bermudan of the Year, Rafter says he is planning to spend "at least" the 30 days on the island required to qualify as a resident for taxation purposes under Bermudan law. Though some critics have described Rafter's Bermudan residency as a "tax dodge", Rafter insists it is based on a strong desire to contribute to Bermudan society.
"Tax is how individuals contribute to the society they live in, and it's a means of contributing to the common good. My fellow Bermudans and I have chosen, for ethical reasons, to contribute to a progressive society that has opted to abolish income tax." he explained.
Rafter will also continue his role with the phone company 1800-REVERSE despite attracting heavy criticism from the Australia Day Council for his insistence on reversing the charges when calling to accept the Australian of the Year award. This year, Rafter will also be launching his own phone service, 1800 TAX-AVERSE.
Bermuda's Premier, Jennifer Smith, says that Australians who have criticised Rafter's motives in living in Bermuda don't know their own luck. "You should appreciate Rafter as much as we do," she said. "Do you have any idea how much we would have liked him to play for our Davis Cup team?"
Smith says she is extremely gratified that he continues to reside in Bermuda despite being made Australian of the Year. "We're very proud of Pat. So proud, in fact, that we were only too happy to name him Bermudan of the Year when he asked."
Our cricketers missed the one-day finals, nary a local tennis player made it through the First Round of the Australian Open and our only winter Olympic medal hope did her knee in training!
For John Howard it hasn't been much better, snubbed by the Indonesians, harangued by the UN, ignored by the Americans and now having to face the full ugly picture of how his government lied, spied and cheated its way back into power.
Meanwhile, the Christmas bushfires that engulfed the State seemed inextricably drawn towards seats that voted Liberal - Lindsay, Macquarie, Macarthur, Berowra and Gilmore all copping the heat.
And the ALP continued to tie itself in knots, trying to convince itself its 'me-too' policy on mandatory detention was morally defensible and that the only thing that kept them out of power was too much union influence.
The chickens are coming home to roost and no-one appears very comfortable or relaxed right now.
Cosmic design or otherwise, there's a lot of cleaning up to do if we want to create a society we can be proud to be part of.
Like so often before, it's been left to the union movement to lead the way out of the wilderness, to humanize our refugee policies and immigration policies through its support of Labor for Refugees and commitment to a workplace harmony campaign.
As the Labor Council's polling shows, this is an issue that will require the sort of leadership that political parties seem unable to provide any more, to advocate a position not because it is popular but because it is right..
The refugee issue is not the only struggle the union movement is engaged in - it's currently on the front foot over Reasonable Working hours - while defending workers from latest Abbott attacks via his laughably named 'Fair Dismissals' Bill.
But - despite the criticism of the likes of Mark Latham - it is core union business, because it is about resisting the same politics of division that turns workers against each other and into the hands of the boss.
It is about treating others with the same dignity, respect and compassion that we would see ourselves receive. And in the current climate, these qualities seem pretty thin on the ground.
If only for our national sporting self-esteem, we need to find a better way of dealing with our place in the world.
Maybe the national cricket selectors can teach us a thing or two - when you stop performing you sack the leader. If only it was so easy for the Australian public.
Peter Lewis
Editor
Michael Crosby |
***************
Mark Latham comes with a heavy pedigree. He's written a book. He is regularly lauded in the mainstream media as a bright young thing shaking up the Labour Party with his new ideas. Commentators nominate him as a future leader. The Parliamentary Caucus certainly think he has something to offer. He is - after self-imposed exile on the backbench to develop and advocate policy - , once again, a member of the Shadow Cabinet.
His response to John Robertson's letter introducing Labor for Refugees should therefore be an important document. After all, if the Party wants to decrease the formal power of unions in its decision making forums then it will need to encourage open debate around policy issues. Otherwise, how can it ever inform itself about what should be appropriate responses to the issues of the day. A debate between the leaders of the Labor Movement in NSW and a star of the parliamentary caucus is something to be watched closely. Perhaps this is how the caucus will demonstrate its willingness to listen.
What we get from Mr. Latham is an attack on anyone who holds views that are different to his. As far as Labor for Refugees is concerned, he acknowledges that there are "some good people among it(sic) membership." But the letter then goes on in the crudest terms to characterise anyone supporting the proposals of Labor for Refugees as :
- fellow travellers with the Greens and Democrats,
- supporters of people smuggling,
- betrayers of the Labor Movement's traditional values,
- purveyors of a rights agenda - (whatever that is),
- protected from the real world by the "purchase of private security, private education, private health insurance and private transport."
In particular, the Labor Council is slapped around for expressing opinions on issues like refugees. Rather, it should
"redirect its resources to tangible social justice campaigns, such as:
1. The reform of housing and welfare policies to eliminate poverty in public housing estates.
2. The reform of under-performing government high schools in poor neighbourhoods, with their high rates of absenteeism, violence and student failure.
3. The reform of the lazy, self-serving NSW Police Service that now spends more time avoiding crime in working class suburbs than solving it."
Perhaps the cheapest shot taken is to single out Philip Adams as a typical supporter of these views and then repeat a quite vicious story to his detriment - apparently with the purpose of exposing his supposed hypocrisy.
The meat of the letter argues the Government's position. In doing so it exposes just how shallow that argument is.
- He claims that when we entered into our international commitments there was no people smuggling. (Therefore, presumably, times have changed and we can just ignore those commitments.)
- Because these people have landed somewhere else in Asia they have obtained refuge already. Getting to Australia is therefore just country shopping.
(This is lucky for Australia. Our geography should mean, if this is a correct interpretation of our responsibilities, that we should just about never have to accept refugees. We live so far away, refugees aiming to seek refuge here will always land somewhere else first and then we can wipe our hands of them.)
- Indonesia is to blame. They have turned a blind eye to people smuggling and have "tried to pass on the flow of asylum seekers to our country."
(The problem is that Howard himself has specifically denied that Indonesia is to blame. He is quoted as saying that "He has never accused the Indonesian Government of being responsible for the illegal trafficking of people.") (SMH, 5-2-02)
- We have to have mandatory detention to conduct health and security checks.
(What is it about Woomera and Port Hedland that makes these places ideal for the conduct of these checks. Do they work better in a desert? Is Manus Island and Nauru a good place to do them? Manus Island at least doesn't seem to be ideal. It's malaria prone and no, we didn't arrange for them to be protected against malaria - so yes, now those health checks will indeed be pretty important.)
- Some of the "refugees" are not really refugees.
(Yes, that's true - and no-one to my knowledge denies that fact. Of 131 applicants from the Tampa, the New Zealand Government has rejected just one. Economic migrants should indeed be identified and sent home. The problem is that processing is deliberately slow or stopped altogether to either encourage or force applicants to give up and ask to be sent home.)
- Our refugee program should be aimed at those with the highest level of need - those in refugee camps. (Absolutely. We agree again. The problem is that Australia takes a pathetically small number of refugees each year - far fewer than comparable countries - and the level is actually falling. Many members of the community object to the refugees in mandatory detention on the basis that they are queue jumpers. The problem is that there is no queue.)
- Unskilled migration hasn't been a success.
(Yes, we agree, but so what? We were talking about refugees. Some of the people in Woomera may be doctors or engineers or parliamentarians for all I know. But skill doesn't come into it. They are either refugees or not. The point is that they claim to be people who need to seek refuge in another country - they fear for their lives. Our international obligations require that we deal with their application for refuge and grant it if they are genuine refugees.)
The worst part of this diatribe is the way in which Mr Latham - representing as he does a working class constituency - seeks to wrap himself in the mantle of Curtin and Chifley. He is a true representative of the views of working people - as opposed to those privileged and hypocritical elites like Philip Adams and John Robertson (and me) who cocoon ourselves with private security, education, health insurance and transport. (For the record I now confess that the Crosby's have the four privates - a burglar alarm in our home, I sent my kids to Catholic systemic schools - we are Catholics, private health insurance and we own a car. I am still not quite sure how this prevents me - or Mr. Latham or anyone else for that matter - from having a view about how the country is governed and being socially responsible. I have all these things because workers have paid my wages for the last 25 years. Generally they seem to think they got value for money.)
I contrast Mr Latham's willingness to be a faithful reflector of the views of those in his constituency with the attitude taken by Lionel Bowen many years ago when he was the Member for Kingsford Smith. I was a delegate to the FEC at the time - a bright eyed, bushy tailed member of the Left - and therefore not all that welcome in what was a stronghold of the Right! It was at the time of the first waves of Vietnamese boat people.
A delegate got up and asked Lionel what he was going to do about these 'chinks from Vietnam'. In his view the navy should be used to tow them back out to sea and if they wouldn't go back to where they belonged, should sink them on the spot.
As you can imagine, a hush fell to see how the Local Member would handle that! What followed was a model of how to educate a group of people about an appropriate set of policies for a movement that wants to see itself as humanitarian.
He acknowledged the delegates' fears. Yes, these people were predominantly low skilled and there was a danger that if uncontrolled it would have an impact on the employment of workers in this electorate and throughout Australia. But the way to deal with the issue was not to attack the asylum seekers. They were acting out of desperation - just as anyone in the room would if the positions were reversed. The need was to attack the problem at source and work out what was going wrong in Vietnam that led to these people leaving. If Vietnam needed aid to get their economy going, then it should be given. He pointed out that given the ideological tensions in Vietnam, it was certain that there would still be people who would want to leave - even if the economic position improved. The way to handle that was to set up processing centres so that people's applications to enter could be processed where they were. We had to set up a queue. And then we had to give hope to these people by admitting a generous number of refugees - and get all the other rich countries around the world to play their part in accepting refugees.
The delegates were happy. They understood the background and the way Lionel spoke that night, they came to realise that these were real people worthy of our sympathy.
I was proud to be a member of the Party that night and to be led by someone like Bowen.
That night, he was being absolutely faithful to the tradition of Chifley and Curtin because that has been the way in which our best parliamentarians have behaved. Our parliamentarians should indeed listen to their constituents and find out what they are thinking. But listening has also to be matched with a responsibility to lead - to work out what is the principled position to take and explain that position to the electorate.
That is, after all, the difference between progressives and conservatives. People like John Howard watch the opinion polls and mirror those views slavishly. In contrast, every great labour leader has tried to work out what is right and sought to change public opinion accordingly. That's why we had the policy we did on the Vietnam War and on Vietnamese refugees - despite their initial unpopularity. And that's why John Robertson and Labor for Refugees are right and should be supported.
Solutions like those of Lionel Bowen in relation to Vietnamese refugees are applicable now. What is surely unacceptable is for us to incarcerate for extended periods in almost the harshest environments imaginable, men, women and children whose only crime is that they are poor and claim to be in fear of their lives. That is simply wrong. The union movement can't tolerate it and neither should the Labour Party.
by Jasper Goss
World Cup 2002 |
*************
The great Caribbean Trotskyist writer CLR James in Beyond a Boundary (written in the early 1960s) established the inseparable nature of sport and politics. James demonstrated, by examining the social role of cricket in the West Indies, how the initial struggles to indigenise West Indian cricket fed into anti-colonial struggles and ultimately into successful independence from the British Empire.
Since Beyond a Boundary many sporting events have frequently, overly and covertly, highlighted political conflicts. To name a few: the Olympics throughout the Cold War as battles between the US and the USSR; any sporting event with South Africa during the racist era of apartheid; and, the struggle for African-American civil rights exemplified in the career of Muhammad Ali. We cannot think of such sporting moments without the association of politics.
In fact it is difficult not to see politics in any major sporting event, let alone the largest and most popular: the World Cup.
This year's World Cup is jointly hosted by Japan and Korea (South). Everyone understands that soccer is huge business - revenues from advertising, merchandising and broadcast rights will no doubt equal the annual income of some medium-sized countries.
Let us review what we know about one of the countries hosting the World Cup.
We know that South Korea, after having recovered from a devastating war 50 years ago, is now the 13th richest country in the world and has produced global manufacturing and industrial conglomerates. Yet, despite this wealth South Korea's citizens only gained the right to vote for their president in 1987.
In fact for much of the last half of the Twentieth Century Korea was ruled by a succession of brutal dictatorships. What was of profound importance in bringing down the dictatorships were the struggles of democratic labour movements whose activities were criminalised by the state.
Organising a union not controlled by the government led to gaol. Initiating industrial activity outside the confines of government-approved unions led to gaol.
Just last year, over 600 trade unionists were arrested for undertaking basic trade union work. The leader of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) Dan Byong Ho sits in a Seoul gaol under a two and a half year sentence for having organised protests against the IMF restructuring packages adopted by the Korean government.
What has any of this to do with the World Cup?
The South Korean government hopes people see no connection between the sporting conditions on the pitch and the social conditions in the country. The government wants Korea to be seen as a 'happy' place, which is efficient and good for business.
Which means there can be no strikes or industrial activity.
Which means trade union activists who highlight the denial of fundamental rights have to be silenced or marginalised.
Which means workers cannot draw attention to the exploitative conditions under which they labour.
Which means the focus of the World Cup must be football, not the casual worker in the hotel being paid a pittance as she makes the bed of a visiting tourist and denied the right of joining a union of her own choice.
Which means the focus of the World Cup must be the latest fashion accessory disguised as a football boot, not the unemployed trade unionist fired for trying to get better wages.
So when the football lands in the goal net and the camera pans across cheering (or disappointed) faces this June it is important to remember what the World Cup represents. For some it will be about national prowess and redemption.
But for the Korean government the World Cup will be used to demonstrate the country's modernity and embrace of the world. Yet, the government has been very selective in this embrace. Fundamental rights for workers remain missing in Korea's drive for modernity and attempting to ignore this absence in the commercial euphoria of the World Cup will only leave a bitter legacy.
*************
Jasper Goss is information and research officer with the Asia and Pacific Regional Secretariat of the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations.
Natasha Stott-Despoja |
***********
MIXED MESSAGE
South Australian voters sent mixed messages through an indecisive state poll. Labor picked up ground on the ruling Liberals, in terms of votes, but looked to have fallen a couple of seats shy of being able to form a Government in its own right. Nataha Stott-Despoja's Democrats were the big losers as their vote imploded. Labor leader Mike Rann didn't rule out the possibility of a hung parliament and warned that time-consuming recounts were highly likely in closely-contested seats. By the end of the week, however, independent Peter Lewis (no relation) had emerged as king-maker and indicated he would help Labor to control of every state and territory for the first time in history.
DUNNY CAM
Up North, the AMWU pulled the chain on Mount Isa Mines for its policy of operating cameras in the toilets of its drug testing facility. The AMWU objected to contracted drugs tester, Western Diagnostics, installing permanent cameras in positions where they could record close-up film of male and female workers urinating. The AMWU called the set-up "drugs testing gone mad" and demanded removal of the offending equipment. http://www.labor.net.au/news/1714.html
BIG NOTERS
Musicians struck a promising chord with prominent Sydney Morning Herald coverage for their latest union recruitment campaign. Newly-elected NSW secretary, Richard Roule, told the paper less-established musicians had little bargaining power against recording companies, hotels and other entertainment industry heavyweights. Roule, a drummer with 80s chart-toppers the Dynamic Hepnotics, is targeting a new generation of performers in a bid to drag the union "kicking and screaming into the 21st century".
MARITIME SURVEILLANCE
MUA officials found themselves centre stage in another Peter Reith scandal when Sydney's Daily Telegraph claimed Government had spied on them during last year's MV Tampa stand-off. Conversations between MUA officials and the Tampa's skipper, Arne Rinnan, were intercepted by the Federal Government's spy agency at Geraldton and passed to the office of then Defence Minister, Reith. The Government used information from the private conversations to develop a political response that turned into a key election vote-winner, the paper reported. Subsequent denials by John Howard, Phillip Ruddock et al were published on the same day that their porkies on the "children overboard" scandal were exposed. Clearly unimpressed, the ICFTU representing 157 million trade unionists in 148 countries, pronounced itself "deeply disturbed" in a letter to Howard.
MORE PORKIES
NEW Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, attempted to match his predecessor by labeling legislative changes that would remove unfair dismissal rights from millions of Australian workers, the Fair Dismissal Bill. In legal jargon, Abbott seeks to prevent "small business employees from applying under the Workplace Relations Act for a remedy in respect of harsh, unjustified or unreasonable termination of employment". Abbott opted for an all-spin attack by claiming, without evidence, the change could create 53,000 new jobs, despite a recent Federal Court finding which said, in part, "there has been much assertion on this topic during recent years, but apparently no effort to ascertain the factual situation". A reasonable effort from a tyro but pale by comparison with a resume featuring fibs that drove goons-on-the-wharves, children overboard and the celebrated Telecard Affair.
ROBBO'S BRAVE FACE
NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson labeled polling that revealed widespread support for Government's mandatory detention policies as an "opportunity to challenge racism". Robertson was opening his organisation's Workplace Harmony campaign in Sydney. The line was developed by University of NSW lecturer in workplace relations, Sarah Gregson, who challenged the "myth" that labour had dragged the chain on migrant issues to the point of being the backbone for discredited White Australia policies. She used stirring examples of unity across race and religion, from Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie, to underline her point. Academics Martin Loosemore and Kevin Dunn presented new research while Naomi Steer used UNHCR figures to show Australia lagging well behind other developed countries in refugee arrivals. Batoul Jayyousi from Sydney's Malek Fhad Islamic School, with a role of 1700 pupils, talked about the effects on students and parents of reactions to September 11. She criticised press and politicians for whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment but thanked other schools, public and private, for messages of support signed by pupils and teachers.
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